Mike Bloomberg Trade: Wolfson for Sheekey

Just in time for spring training, Team Bloomberg today announced a straight-up trade of Kevin Sheekey (pictured), deputy mayor for politics, for Howard Wolfson, who will be the new deputy mayor for politics.

Sheekey returns whence he came, that being the team's private branch, Bloomberg L.P. Announcing the move, manager Mike Bloomberg called Sheekey one of his "closest advisors for 13 years." He also credited him with everything from fixing the schools to immigration reforms.

"He has had his hand in just about everything we've done for the past four years," said Bloomy.

The smart money says this all has to do with Manager Mike's latest presidential ambition: Bloomberg 2012. With Sheekey free to roam at will from his private post, he can help lay the ground for the new campaign, just like he tried to do in 2008.

Wolfson, meanwhile, can be counted on to make the connections from City Hall for a new Oval Office gambit.

As for Sheekey, his most lasting contribution to city affairs is listed pretty far down in the mayor's press release: Running the city's host committee for the 2004 GOP Convention here.

This was Sheekey's baby, from beginning to end. For those who missed it, that was the one where Bloomberg showed up on the convention floor at Madison Square Garden to praise George W. Bush; where the city barred a peaceful mass rally against Bush and the Iraq War in Central Park (bad for the grass); and where the NYPD busted everyone and anyone they could on the streets of their own city, and then held them in a pen on a soot-streaked Hudson River pier for two days. All told, a huge success from a planner's perspective.